


mouthful of forevers

by aliatori



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, Cordio continues to ruin my life, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Post-World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: In a way, they’ve been falling since the sun rose, and Cor has no idea when they’ll stop—or what awaits them when they land.Cor finds the means to connect with a distant Gladio.





	mouthful of forevers

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mouthful of Forevers](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/407154) by Clementine von Radics. 



> thank you to [roadsoftrial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadsoftrial/pseuds/roadsoftrial) and [chiii](https://twitter.com/chi_peppers) for constantly supporting and enabling this ship
> 
> title and poem text are not mine - see the 'inspired by' tag for more details

If the capacity for guilt hadn’t been burned out of Cor with all the ruthless precision of a life spent at war, he might feel a degree of guilt at how much he enjoys the peace and quiet with Gladio gone.

Objectively, it’s a beautiful day. Sun pours in through the window, streaming in behind one of the faded navy blue curtains that isn’t quite pushed back from the glass, the glittering surface of the lake visible beyond the thick row of reeds lining the shore. Picturesque and idyllic—exactly what he imagined all those years ago when he first dreamt of respite, exactly what he imagined when he and a broken, empty Gladio left Insomnia behind months ago.

Cor’s eyes drift down to the pine flooring of the cabin, following a liquid trail of dark brown stains from the front door to the kitchen, where a wounded Gladio had collapsed three days prior. Gladio has always read as easily as a open book, the pages lined with clear, bold print, but lately…

Lately, it’s as though Gladio is ripping the pages out of that book, consigning them one by one to various flames: the seductive, shimmering allure of recklessness; the pure, cleansing fire of anger; the guttering, smouldering embers of shame; the cold, biting intensity of loneliness. Most of all, Gladio has been surrendering to rage, a rage powerful enough to devour all other emotion and swallow it down to drown and die. Cor has been hoping—knowing full well how treacherous hope can be—Gladio will reduce himself to cinders and start to grow anew, will let the ashes of his sorrow enrich the soil of his new life.

He hasn’t.

Despite his injury, Gladio was gone again before Cor woke the next morning, so here he is, alone and contemplative and _tired_. Solitude has its benefits, one of which is the ability to relax his guard, so Cor sighs, lets the breath bear some of the new burden placed upon his shoulders, whisking away on the back of the wind.

It wouldn’t be the first time in Cor’s life that he’s been a fool, and he’s starting to think, with all the reluctance of a heart where every beat is reinforced by love, that he’s being a fool now.

He paces back and forth along the cabin, because action is better than inaction, because inertia is better than abeyance, because stillness is an invitation to tread down paths Cor can’t afford to travel right now. Twenty six steps to the opposite wall, forty two back to the kitchen, the distance unchanging no matter how straight or crooked a line he walks. Cor repeats this circuit several times, and just as he’s about to change his course, leave the cabin, see how far his feet take him away from this place, he spots something out of the ordinary.

It’s a box.

The corner peeks out from under the bed he and Gladio share—a bed Cor sleeps in alone more often than not lately, what with Gladio being absent or taking up residence on the couch, presenting the curvature of his spine for Cor’s prolonged study—and contains a handful of books Cor doesn’t recognize. He takes a few more steps and squats down just before his boot would scrape the edge, his hands already rifling through the box’s contents, curious.

As Cor lifts each book from the box, he finds no consistency in their appearances. Their covers are hard and malleable in turns; some are as thick as his palm and others as narrow as his little finger. He discovers the common element as he flips through the pages and skims the text—all of these books contain poetry, and most are annotated in Gladio’s hand.

He doesn’t wonder why Gladio hasn’t disclosed this interest of his—after nearly twelve years together, there are still benign secrets held under lock and key for both of them, waiting for the right, quiet moment to be divulged—but he does have other questions. The love Gladio holds for these volumes is clear to Cor, from the hidden place of honor where they’re stored to the lines that decorate them, grey and red and blue and black weaving together to lend life to the pages. Aside from circled passages, underlined words, and added commentary, the only other distinguishing pattern Cor finds is one of letters. ‘N’, ‘I’, ‘D’, ‘S’, and ‘C’ are scrawled in the upper corners of certain poems, usually in the most dogeared and careworn sections.

In happier times, in better circumstances, Cor might try to study them further, but right now he doesn’t have the patience or energy to decipher figurative language or to figure out how Gladio might apply it to their lives. He arranges the books as close to how he found them as possible and pushes the box back under the bed, the same corner showing from underneath the boxspring. As he does so, his fingers brush against a book laying on the floor, fibrous clumps of dust clinging to it.

Cor pulls it out from beneath the bed, fully intending to place it in the box with the others, but something about the weathered teal cover stops him. With book in hand, he sits on the edge of the bed, flipping through the pages. The paper inside the volume has turned a deep, buttery yellow with age, the ink faded from sun and time and touch. He stops when he comes to a scrap of plaid fabric Gladio uses as a bookmark.

This poem—”Mouthful of Forevers”, or so the title says—has been read many, many times, if the appearance of the page is any indicator. Water stains sprawl across the page, ink and graphite taking up most of the empty space between the stanzas and along the margins. The corner of the paper has been bent back at so many different angles that the creases make diagonal stripes down the page. A ‘C’ decorates the same wrinkled corner, written in pencil and so faded that it’s nearly invisible.

Cor begins to read.

> ~~I am not the first person you loved.~~  
>  You are not the first person I looked at  
>  with a mouthful of forevers. **We**  
>  **have both known loss like the sharp edges**  
>  **of a knife.** We have both lived with lips  
>  more scar tissue than skin. Our love came  
>  unannounced in the middle of the night  
>  Our love came when we’d given up  
>  on asking love to come. I think  
>  that has to be part of its miracle.

Cor’s fingers brush against the page, brow furrowed. As each word sinks in, his pulse beats a fraction faster, quickening in a way it hasn’t since the return of the sun. This is… regardless of his personal opinion on romance, this is a side of Gladio he’s never seen, especially not the Gladio he lives with now, the one that vacillates between seething rage and vast distance. The first line, crossed out in faded ink, has been re-written above it, and before he has time to consider the implications of the re-written line, Cor continues reading.

> **This is how we heal.**  
>  I will kiss you like forgiveness. You  
>  will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms  
>  will bandage and we will press promises  
>  between us like flowers in a book.  
>  I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat  
>  on your skin. I will write novels to the scar  
>  on your nose. I will write a dictionary  
>  of all the words I have used trying  
>  to describe the way it feels to have finally,  
>  finally found you.

Circles of blue ink, black ink, and pencil surround the first line, physical evidence and time overlapping one another like pages of a calendar. Off to side, in handwriting Cor is intimately familiar with, are two words in fresh ink: ‘is it?’ Cor has long thought himself immune to heartbreak, but he wonders if the dull ache in his chest might be the beginning of it, the first stages of a process he’s been staving off by sheer force of will. As patient as he’s tried to be, as calm as he’s tried to be, he’s assumed Gladio had stopped trying to be better, to heal.

But now, as the meaning of the words he’s reading roll over in his mind, he begins to think his assumption false. Cor can admit when he’s wrong, and he desperately, _urgently_ wants to be wrong about the current state of affairs.

> ** And I will not be afraid **  
>  **of your scars.**

In faint pencil, Gladio has added the words ‘and you will not be afraid of mine’, the grey lines so smudged that Cor has to squint to make them out. They look old, older than most of the other annotations, and Cor wonders for a moment just how long this piece has been a feature in Gladio’s life.

Like most events in his life, there’s nothing left to do but see this through to the end, so Cor reads the final stanza.

> I know sometimes  
>  it’s still hard to let me see you  
>  in all your cracked perfection,  
>  but please know:  
>  Whether it’s the days you burn  
>  more brilliant than the sun  
>  or the nights you collapse into my lap,  
>  **your body broken into a thousand questions,**  
>  you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.  
>  ~~I will love you when you are a still day.~~  
>  I will love you ~~when you are a hurricane~~.

Cor’s eyes gravitate towards the ‘I will love you’, the only part of the last two lines not crossed out. It’s abundantly clear, between the subject matter and the ‘C’ at the top of the page, that Gladio finds this poem relevant to their… relationship, such as it stands. He’s not certain he grasps all the intricacies and layers of meaning that Gladio finds within these words, but he feels…

Hopeful.

Cor reads the poem several more times, slow and careful, before closing the book, placing it in the box, and returning it to its proper place. His flawless memory, a curse as much as it has ever been a blessing, proves helpful for a change; he remembers the piece in its entirety.

As he recites the poem in his mind over the following days, mouthing the lines as he stares at white shower tiles or thinking them as he gazes out over the crystalline lake, the words become the closest thing to a prayer that Cor Leonis has said in a long, long time.

* * *

So far, Gladio always comes back from his restless sojourns, and this extended absence proves no exception.

Cor’s in the middle of cubing anak meat for skewers when the Gladio walks through the door, broad shoulders barely fitting through the frame of it. With practiced, measured speed, Cor lifts his eyes to meet Gladio’s, surveying the state of him on the way up. No blood, no visible wounds, and his hair’s even pulled back into a messy but serviceable bun; wherever he was, whatever he was doing, it’s one of the better times, a time where he’s come back with the pieces of his soul stitched together in a semblance of normalcy.

“You have an impeccable sense of timing,” Cor deadpans, because emotionless tends to be the safest route with Gladio these days.

Gladio snorts, shrugs off his leather jacket, and tosses it over the arm of the couch. “My first lucky break in days, then.” As he sinks into a nearby armchair and begins to unlace his boots, Gladio pauses, giving the air an audible sniff. “You making prairie skewers?”

“I am.” Conversation with Gladio is like tiptoeing through Imperial tripwires. Caution is key.

“Don’t suppose there’d be enough for me too?” Gladio asks.

Cor makes eye contact and finds Gladio’s amber gaze more open than it has been lately, earnest, unshadowed by the past that plagues him with the tenacity of sin. The fact that there’s already an exchange of dialogue between them is a good sign. There’s no point in asking probing questions, no point in trying to dole out passive aggressive punishment—Gladio is back, and it’s a good day for him, and right now, that’s all Cor can ask of him.

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” Gladio says, and Cor can hear the genuine gratitude in the word, a gratitude that matches the slow grin he gives. He lifts arm, sniffs again, and winces. “Six. I need some fucking soap two days ago. Mind if I grab a shower, or do you need help?”

Cor gestures with his chin towards the bathroom, his hands busy with the last of the anak meat, and Gladio nods back at him, and the whole scenario feels so close to normal that if Cor were any other man, it would knock him off balance. But he is not any other man, and he’s used to the highs and lows of Gladio’s struggle to find himself again, and they’re both so damn good at pretending nothing’s wrong (even when it is), so he simply continues through the motions of dinner to keep his hands and mind occupied.

By the time the skewers are in the oven, Gladio’s finished with his shower, exiting the bathroom with only a thin towel slung low around his waist. In spite of everything, Cor seizes on the chance to admire him: long, wet hair that curls around his shoulders; the faded lines of his tattoo, blurred by sun and time; the scarred muscle that flexes as he moves, leaner than it used to be but no less powerful. At 35, even though so many of those years have been hard lived, Gladio’s in his prime, and Cor would have to have both feet in the grave not to appreciate it for what it is.

Gladio looks over one shoulder, a smirk spreading across his face, full lower lip jutting out. “Like what you see?” The confidence of the question takes Cor aback—it belongs to a much younger Gladio, one who used to see just how far he could push Cor for the joy of it, one who would sneak into his tent in the dead of night, one whose mouth Cor can still remember the taste of.

“I do,” Cor admits, glancing at the kitchen timer before returning his attention to Gladio. He swallows, then adds, “I’m especially pleased that you’ve managed to come back with no grave wounds this time.” Cor won’t punish him, but he will be honest, because he always has. The statement skirts close to lines that are dangerous to cross.

Gladio chuckles and tilts his head to the side. “You and me both. I’ll be right back.”

True to his word, Gladio ducks into the bedroom and reappears a few minutes later, wearing the same tank top and sweats combination Cor has seen him in for so many years. By the time he strides back into the main section of the cabin, the skewers are ready, so Cor plates them and brings them to the kitchen table where Gladio waits.

“Just as good as Iggy used to make them,” Gladio says with a small grin after his first bite, wiping at his mouth with the napkin beside him.

“Good.”

As they eat in silence, Cor notices the all too familiar distance creeping into Gladio’s eyes; apparently even one of his favourite meals isn’t enough to keep him tethered to the here and now. Or… perhaps it’s because of the association that he’s wandering. It could go either way, most days, and Cor isn’t sure which way the wind blows this evening.

“You alright?” It’s a feeble attempt at conversation, but it’s the best Cor’s got.

One shoulder, collarbone carving a wicked line through lean muscle, lifts in a half-hearted shrug. “Alright enough.”

So much for that plan.

As Gladio clears the table of their dirty plates, a habitual act Gladio’s done countless times before, longing overtakes Cor with an intense, sudden ferocity. The Gladio that walked through the door today is the closest thing to his partner Cor’s seen in… months, many months; his thoughts grasp for anything he could say to bring him back, engage him, keep him in the present instead of lingering in the past

“Storm loosened up some of the boards on the dock,” Cor says, trying a different tack. “Could use a hand fixing it tomorrow.” He doesn’t actually need the help, but it would be something he and Gladio could do together, and that would be an improvement.

“Damn. Again?” Gladio asks over the sound of the sink.

“Afraid so.”

“Son of a bitch. Didn’t we just patch it up the other day?”

“If by ‘the other day’ you mean ‘three months ago’, then yes, we did,” Cor says.

Confusion flashes through Gladio’s wide, whisky gaze, and is quickly replaced by that distant nothingness. Cor remembers what it’s like to find time in disarray, to wonder if something happened the previous day or the previous year, to have boxes of memories spill without warning and tumble through the chaos of them, but it worries him more than he cares to admit to see the same trait in Gladio. The worry crystallizes like ice in his veins when Gladio lets the water in the sink run over his motionless hands, staring at nothing, barely blinking.

“What’s the point? What’s the point of any of it? This?” Gladio asks, a ragged edge to his voice, waving a soapy hand in an arc across the kitchen. “We just keep doing the same fucking shit, day after day, and—”

Cor doesn’t think—he speaks.

“This is how we heal,” Cor says firmly, loud enough to interrupt Gladio’s sentence. 

Gladio’s head jerks up like a startled animal. “What?” He pauses to turn off the water before repeating, “what did you say?” There’s no heat in the words, just genuine bewilderment, soft and tentative.

“This,” Cor repeats, meeting Gladio’s eyes, willing him to listen, to remember, to take hold of the lifeline Cor’s throwing him and pull himself to safety, “is how we heal.”

“You…” Gladio begins, the words trailing off into nothing. He dries his hands on one of the checkered dish towels hanging off the oven door and then crosses the room to Cor, eyes bright and alert. “I didn’t know you’d read any of the poetry stuff.”

“A recent development,” Cor says, careful not to let any of his worry seep into the words.

Gladio doesn’t say anything, just moves closer, and then he’s standing right next to Cor. He can feel the heat of Gladio’s body rolling off of him in gentle waves, closer than they’ve been in months, the spice and musk of him filling his lungs on every inhale.

“When?” Gladio places a hand on the side of Cor’s neck as he asks the question, and it takes all of Cor’s considerable resolve not to lean into the touch.

“While you were gone.” He reaches up and puts his hand over Gladio’s, reassurance without guidance. Wherever Gladio’s taking this, Cor will follow.

Gladio bends down to bring his face next to Cor’s, his lips close enough to meet Cor’s in a facsimile of a kiss. “I will kiss you,” Gladio recites, voice low and filled with a different, pleasant heat, one that Cor has been yearning for with a desperate, quiet urgency, “like forgiveness.”

Cor the Immortal does not yield, but thankfully, he’s not the Immortal anymore, just Cor, and so he yields.

Gladio’s lips are warm on his own, a chaste press of skin to skin, and Cor tastes traces of the spices on them as they kiss. Cor moves his hand from on top of Gladio’s to the back of Gladio’s neck; it’s such a simple thing, one he’s done a million times if he’s done it once, but the connection they make thrums with new life.

“You will hold me like I’m hope,” Gladio continues, and then he kisses Cor again, running his tongue along the outside of Cor’s lips in a gentle request for permission, one Cor happily grants.

The stiffness eases from Cor’s limbs, bit by bit, as they continue to kiss in the middle of the cabin, tongues sliding against each other in lazy, easy familiarity. Gladio is present in all the tiny ways that matter: in the firm press of his mouth to Cor’s, in the way his hands snake underneath Cor’s shirt, in the graze of his fingers against the pallid scar that cuts across Cor’s stomach.

It’s been so long since they’ve connected at all, so long since they’ve touched or kissed or fucked, that the sensation of Gladio’s full beard against Cor’s cheek is both welcome and unfamiliar. He trails a line of kisses down the length of Cor’s neck and then licks his way back up it in a slow, delectable pass. “I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat on your skin,” Gladio murmurs.

“ _Gladio_ ,” Cor grinds out, terse, his grip tightening on the back of Gladio’s neck by reflex. He’s responding, his body is stirring, and as patient as he is trying to be, he doesn’t know if his patience can weather this kind of attention if it goes nowhere, not after more days and nights apart than Cor is willing to keep track of.

Gladio makes his way to Cor’s ear, placing his lips near it before speaking again. “And I will not be afraid of your scars.” The bass of Gladio’s voice, the feel of his fingers tracing Cor’s scar, and the warmth of his breath sends a tiny, involuntary shudder through Cor.

Their lips meet again in an urgent, sloppy kiss, the walls around them eroding under the inexorable force of desire. Cor learns over and over again with each passing second how much he’s missed a Gladio who is _present_ and _alive_ and _here_ , and loves him for it, loves him for it even as he wonders if the end of the world will be the end of them, too.

“Bed,” Cor says against Gladio’s mouth, winding a hand in his hair, and when Gladio laughs into their next kiss, Cor has to blink away dampness from his eyes.

A trail of clothes forms a path from the kitchen to the bedroom, clothes peeled off by Cor’s persistent, relentless hands and Gladio’s eager, roaming ones. He falls into bed as much as he falls into Gladio, tied up in skin and a thin duvet, their limbs interwoven as they try to remember the ways in which they fit together, even though some of the steps are missing or forgotten.

Sunset the colour of rust bathes the room in otherworldly light. Cor breathes in the scent of Gladio, the bergamont of the soap they share and the sharpness that’s uniquely him, as Gladio presses slick, insistent fingers inside him. Their gazes lock together, blue on amber. The way Gladio fixates on Cor with hungry eyes, pupils blown wide and dark, gives Cor substance, transforms him from apparition to man.

Cor guides Gladio to him with an openness that shocks him, somewhere deep down, underneath the snarl of emotion he’s far too preoccupied to untangle. There is no control, no struggle, just a meeting of bodies, and for once in his life, Cor surrenders, because it’s the only viable option. Their hands and mouths are ravenous, ravaging each other, seeking out the fortresses they each have built and tearing them down in one fell swoop. Gladio pants into Cor’s ear in time with the rocking of his hips, skin slick with sweat, driving them both towards an edge they have no business falling over.

But they still fall. In a way, they’ve been falling since the sun rose, and Cor has no idea when they’ll stop—or what awaits them when they land.

He hopes (treacherous, deceptive, deceitful though the emotion is) he finds out soon. 

After, Cor brings Gladio down into a kiss, a kiss that simmers with a slow heat reminiscent of their days in Lestallum; when Gladio responds in kind, Cor lets out a breath he’s been holding for six entire months.

It’s not perfect. Nothing is, not these days, but it’s close enough.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my Cordio partners in crime, chiii, created a [BREATHTAKING piece of art for this fic, which you can find here.](https://twitter.com/chi_peppers/status/1030850643437580288) She also annotated Gladio's poem, so if you want [some extra feels, you can find that image here.](https://twitter.com/chi_peppers/status/1030851041233854464)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated if you enjoyed. <3
> 
> Come find me over on [Tumblr](http://aliatori.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AliatoriEra).


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